A Case Study On The Transformation Of Pedagogical Content Knowledge Of A Primary School English Teacher

As one of the most important knowledge bases for teachers, Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is the touchstone to distinguish expert teachers from novice teachers. Although research on PCK began in the late 1980s, most studies centered on the comparative study of PCK in expert and novice teachers, or had a snapshot of their PCK at a certain point in their subjects'teaching careers.A few studies began to explore teachers'PCK development longitudinally. However, few have researched on the transformation and development of English teachers'PCK in the context of classroom teaching reforms, in which, more detailed and in-depth research is entailed.This essay employs case study approach to explore how teacher's PCK develops and transforms during the process of participating in "New Basic Education" research. This study is content-specific (teaching of EFL), context-specific (the Shanghai 'New Basic Education'research) and subject-specific (experienced primary English teacher who is going through reform of classroom teaching).This essay mainly focuses on the respondent's previous PCK and PCK developed and transformed during participating in the'New Basic Education',as well as the characteristics and triggers of the teacher's PCK development and transformation.This essay tires to probe the research question in the following aspects:In the first chapter, the essay has a literature review. This part dwells on the reason why the researcher chooses to explore PCK, and the theoretical and practical meaning of the research. By reviewing and analyzing the previous studies, this essay puts forward its research perspective, clarify its key words and elaborate on its research methods and process.The second chapter discusses two main questions. The first one is to propose this essay's analytical framework by adopting from the understanding and structure of PCK contributed by Shulman, Grossman and Gess-Newsome, which focuses on five components of PCK:conceptions of teaching purpose, subject matter knowledge, knowledge of curriculum, knowledge of student and knowledge of pedagogy. The second question is to analyze the general development model of PCK and the contribution made by Chinese researchers. The probing of the two questions is served as the analytical framework for the case study in the following chapter.The third chapter is the most important part of this essay. This part mainly demonstrates how a primary school English teacher develops and transforms her PCK in the English teaching research within the research community formed by the "New Basic Education" research. The essay generalizes the characteristics of the teacher's PCK by analyzing the teaching plan and simultaneously interview about the plan. Then through two interviews to get to know what kind of knowledge has she taken in during the process of participating in the "New Basic Education". Then by studying the whole process of the teacher exploring how to teach to realize effective reading, to see how the teacher's PCK is transformed and developed during the research on effective teaching of primary school English reading. The typical cases and important materials employed to prove the transformation and development of the teachers' PCK all come from listening to her classes, five semi-structured interviews, group discussions, the teaching plans and reflection diaries.Through systematic coding of the all the information gathered to discern the teacher's PCK, and by observing the entire process of her research on how to realize effective reading, to infer her PCK transformation and development.The forth part mainly discusses the ways to promote teacher's PCK from teacher's perspective and school's standing. As for the teachers, teachers should try to overcome habitual ways of teaching, reflect on teaching regularly; research more on the curriculum and teaching in order to enrich their PCK, meanwhile, they should alternatively use the theory they acquired to guide their practice and form their own teaching wisdom and personal teaching theory by learning from their teaching experiences.As for schools, they should provide supportive conditions for teachers to develop their PCK. Schools can create learning-oriented atmosphere that encourages forming of learning community and teachers doing researches. In that way, Schools can contribute to the development of PCK of their teachers.